I don't think it's so complex a point. The article's (and other framings') "observer" is a mechanism of self-reflective meta-thought. My point is that this met

I don't think it's so complex a point. The article's (and other framings') "observer" is a mechanism of self-reflective meta-thought. My point is that this meta-thought is itself a thought, it arises from the same place as all other thoughts. The observer is not a separate, passive system from the thinker. It is the thinker, or an element of it, a feedback loop inside the mechanism of the thinker, allowing the thinker to think about the ideas it is contemplating and the process of contemplation itself ("think about thinking"). It allows the thinker to observe in completeness its own contemplative state, and if desired, modify it. In this simplified framework the system is not significantly different from say, industrial control theory.